I've seen a few LOTR online campaigns, and there's not been any discussion on whether they are copyright infringement, so I assume they aren't. Could someone more skilled in legalese tell me if this is specific to LOTR, or if I could run a campaign with another fantasy world, (for instance, brandon Mull's Beyonders series?)
Thanks
I've seen a few LOTR online campaigns, and there's not been any discussion on whether they are copyright infringement, so I assume they aren't. Could someone more skilled in legalese tell me if this is specific to LOTR, or if I could run a campaign with another fantasy world, (for instance, brandon Mull's Beyonders series?)
Thanks
I think it's more an instance of something that the Tolkien estate will not bother to file suit over. I'm not a lawyer, but I will happily share a few basic rules with you to help you understand.
1) It doesn't matter if you're infringing or not; if the copyright holder thinks that you are infringing, they can file suit against you. It takes a lot of time, money, and energy to defend against even a meritless suit.
2) No one actually knows if you're infringing or not until the court makes the decision. Both the stuff protected and the defenses (such as "fair use") are so vague that a decision can only really be made on a case-by-case basis.
3) There's no need to sweat the small stuff. Even if someone wins a copyright infringement case against you, they can only recover the damage to their brand (which is probably minimal in the case of an online RPG campaign) and the profits that you made off the game (which is almost certainly zero). So they'd be embarking on a lengthy, expensive, and uncertain process for which they would receive, even in the best of circumstances, practically nothing in return.
I've seen a few LOTR online campaigns, and there's not been any discussion on whether they are copyright infringement, so I assume they aren't. Could someone more skilled in legalese tell me if this is specific to LOTR, or if I could run a campaign with another fantasy world, (for instance, brandon Mull's Beyonders series?)
ThanksI think it's more an instance of something that the Tolkien estate will not bother to file suit over. I'm not a lawyer, but I will happily share a few basic rules with you to help you understand.
1) It doesn't matter if you're infringing or not; if the copyright holder thinks that you are infringing, they can file suit against you. It takes a lot of time, money, and energy to defend against even a meritless suit.
2) No one actually knows if you're infringing or not until the court makes the decision. Both the stuff protected and the defenses (such as "fair use") are so vague that a decision can only really be made on a case-by-case basis.
3) There's no need to sweat the small stuff. Even if someone wins a copyright infringement case against you, they can only recover the damage to their brand (which is probably minimal in the case of an online RPG campaign) and the profits that you made off the game (which is almost certainly zero). So they'd be embarking on a lengthy, expensive, and uncertain process for which they would receive, even in the best of circumstances, practically nothing in return.
Some states also allow the winner to recoup legal fees from the loser, which would vastly outweigh the fees for brand damage.
3) There's no need to sweat the small stuff. Even if someone wins a copyright infringement case against you, they can only recover the damage to their brand (which is probably minimal in the case of an online RPG campaign) and the profits that you made off the game (which is almost certainly zero). So they'd be embarking on a lengthy, expensive, and uncertain process for which they would receive, even in the best of circumstances, practically nothing in return.Some states also allow the winner to recoup legal fees from the loser, which would vastly outweigh the fees for brand damage.
But doesn't enrich the winner, so it actually makes the suit even riskier and more uncertain. If the copyright holder wins, they still can't get any money themselves from the infringer. If the copyright holder loses, they're now out twice as much money.
Oh, and by the way,.... no, no state [in the US] allows the winner to recoup legal fees. No state can even hear a copyright case to begin with. Copyright is exclusively Federal, so the laws are the same all across the country.
Well, there are copyright issues and trademark issues. I think most of the things you bring up are trademark issues.
Some of them are trademark issues as well. Trademark law is closely tied to copyright law, which is closely tied to patent law, which is closely tied to trade secrecy law, which is.....
But everything I wrote is an issue specifically for copyrights.
Well, there are copyright issues and trademark issues. I think most of the things you bring up are trademark issues.You can violate one, the other, or both.
If the OP doesn't use Brandon Mull's name or the Beyonder's series name, he can still violate copyright if he uses material from the books, but probably wouldn't be accused of trademark violation. Conceivably, he could also violate Trademark rules if any specific portions of those books' contents would qualify for Trademark protection (registered or otherwise). {I haven't read the series so cannot give specific examples.}
I'd actually be rather surprised if Mr. Mull has a trademark on his name. Unlike copyrights, which are implicit in the act of creation, trademarks are created by an act of the Federal Government. I did a quick check and it appears that neither Mr. Mull nor his publishers have applied for a trademark on "Beyonders." So -- although this of course isn't legal advice -- it looks like the OP would be in the clear from a trademark standpoint.
Similarly, you can't patent fiction, so that's not an issue.
Copyright is the real can of worms. Writing another novel in the Beyonders universe using the same characters would almost certainly be held to be a copyright infringement, and using the Internet to publish that novel wouldn't change anything. Writing a novel in the same setting but with different characters would probably still be an infringement. However, running an RPG in that setting, especially a private RPG for your own amusement and that of your friends may or may not be "fair use" (see point #2 above).
If people are running their own stories using names and places from books, that isn't copyright infringement, that's trademark.
Copyright is for directly copying written material from books and films. Unless you're using actual LoTR text in your adventures, like room descriptions, character descriptions, and so on, you're not infringing copyright. If you use the actual character names, and actual place names, you may be infringing trademark.
I'm afraid this is wrong in its entirety.
The unifying term is Intellectual Property, and that's most likely what would be used against you in whatever case that would be found.
To the OP, if you're using someone else's work, it only becomes an issue if you publish. If what you do stays in your group,than it's not an issue.
It can become an issue if you post a web blog, or make your campaign into a network effort like PFS. Legends of the Shining Jewel for instance was, originally Living Procampur, an independent spinoff of the Living City campaign, which filed off all of the Forgotten Realms product identity after they were politely given a suggestion to Cease and Desist from WOTC.
Are you sure?Edit: This was in response to _Ozy_'s post; I broke the quote somehow.
I started writing something explaining trademark in more detail, but it's actually pretty freaking complicated.
You're not quite correct, though. A single character's name can have copyright protection, as can a single word, like Jordan's "Ogier" and "Aes Sedai."
To qualify for trademark protection, a business entity must have used that mark to conduct trade (like a company name, logo, title of a book or product, etc.) and there must be a reasonable likelihood of confusion to the consumer; ie., there must be a chance that a consumer could believe the infringing product is associated with the mark holder.
Yes, he's sure. And he's correct. Nothing prevents you from applying for trademarks for specific aspects of a book (like the names of characters), but it's rarely done. But that is independent of copyright.
Your suggestion (and your source's suggestion) that only the words of a book can be copyrighted is simply wrong. There's lots of case law on this, but a good starting point is Nutt v. National Institute Inc. (2d Cir. 1929). In this case, the court held that "[T]he infringement need not be a complete or exact copy. Paraphrasing or copying with evasion is an infringement, even though there may be little or no conceivable identity between the two."
This issue was discussed briefly in Salinger v. Random House, Inc., 811 F.2d 90 (2d Cir. 1987). The 2nd Circuit specifically called the District Judge to task for not considering the copyright violation in various passages that both sides agreed were paraphrases of the original.
The unifying term is Intellectual Property, and that's most likely what would be used against you in whatever case that would be found.
That's not how the law works, I'm afraid. You can't file a complaint alleging intellectual property violation. You need to be more specific than that.
For example, you can file a complaint alleging violation of USC Title 17, Chapter 5, which is copyright infringement. You can file a complaint alleging violation of USC Title 15, Chapter 22, which is trademark infringement. You can file a complaint alleging both, but you need to be very clear about what you think is a trademark violation and what you think is a copyright violation.
This actually gets back to some pretty fundamental aspects of the US rule of law. I only have to respond to what you actually say in your complaint, and depending upon your specific complaint, there are things that I may or may not be able to say. As a simple example, parody is a legitimate defense to a claim of copyright infringement [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994), Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 252 F. 3d 1165 (11th Cir. 2001)] but not to trademark infringement.
And if you allege copyright violation but aren't able to show it, the courts tend to look with disfavor about your trying to pull a bait-and-switch and say "but I really meant trademark infringement....."
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The unifying term is Intellectual Property, and that's most likely what would be used against you in whatever case that would be found.That's not how the law works, I'm afraid. You can't file a complaint alleging intellectual property violation. You need to be more specific than that.
For example, you can file a complain alleging violation of USC Title 17, Chapter 5, which is copyright infringement. You can file a complain alleging violation of USC Title 15, Chapter 22, which is trademark infringements. You can file a complain alleging both, but you need to be very clear about what you think is a trademark violation and what you think is a copyright violation.
This actually gets back to some pretty fundamental aspects of the US rule of law. I only have to respond to what you actually say in your complaint, and depending upon your specific complain, there are things that I may or may not be able to say. As a simple example, parody is a legitimate defense to a claim of copyright infringement [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994), Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 252 F. 3d 1165 (11th Cir. 2001)] but not to trademark infringement.
He's not asking for a specific question of legal advice. He simply wants to know if he can get in trouble. And he doesn't need a crash course in law to get an answer. Which is as long as he doesn't publish, he's fine.
Generally, IP law is an unadulterated mess. One of the core defenses of it all is "you can't own an idea", but in practice, if someone richer than you has the IP of something that they claim even remotely connects to what you did, and you are not as wealthy as they are, they can shut you down in an economic chicken race. Companies even go out of their way to buy up IP that could be useful to smack people over the head with legally. Cheers for "not owning an idea". Meanwhile, millions of people do not get vital medicine because the owning companies sell too expensively and do not allow anyone else to sell it at all.
I am not a lawyer as long as you are not publishing something or otherwise profiting from the material you should be fine. So if I run a campaign based on LOTR or any other novel for my friends I am not going to get into trouble. If I charge people to play in the campaign or sell my work so other can run it I can get into trouble. The fact that the campaign is run online should not make a difference as long as people are not being charged for it.
I can get together with other people and talk about any book we want without worrying about IP law. But if I form a club to talk about the book and charge a membership fee I can get into trouble. Playing a game based on the book is not really any different than talking about the book. Writing and publishing a game, or gaming material is a whole different story.
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Hi, I'm Gorbacz and I am a lawyer. Whatever I write next is under no circumstances legal advice.
To answer the OP: for most part, private RPG campaigns can use whatever Intellectual Property. Under virtually every jurisdiction, such use of somebody's IP falls under some interpretation of fair use.
In a lot of cases the bright line standard for "Fair Use" appears to be "is anybody other than the copyright holder making money off of this." If you're just running a LotR game for your friends and you're not charging admission (don't, because that's weird) it's not really any more a violation of the Tolkien estate's copyright than if you were to have a lively discussion over lunch about who would win in a fight: Gandalf or Superman.
In your private, not-for-profit games, feel free to borrow any names, settings, characters, etc. that you want to and the reason not to will never be "copyright".
Gandalf would win.